Eighteen Photographs: Soldiers and the Dead in Zabul

In a picture the Los Angeles Times published on its Web site, American troops are posing with some of our Afghan allies and what is left—not much—of the body of a suicide bomber. The Afghans are holding short bits of rope tied to the ankles, with the legs in the air and the remnants of the torso on the ground. One foot is bare, the other has a sock and a shoe. It looks like they are dangling a mangled puppet, or a Ken doll that’s been defaced in a child’s fit of rage, except that the body was a person. Two American soldiers are grinning and giving a thumbs-up. According to the L.A. Times, they are members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne division. Apparently, so is the soldier in another photo the newspaper printed, who looks like he is about to laugh, with the hand of a dead Afghan man on the soldier’s shoulder. The L.A. Times says that it has more—photographs of eighteen soldiers in all, one of them playing with a decapitated head.

These pictures were apparently taken in Zabul province, in 2010. In theory, they could have come to light any time since then. In practice, they are the fourth mortifying reminder in four months of what this war has come to look like—a war that has gone on too long, with soldiers who don’t seem to know why they are in Afghanistan. (Not that any civilians seem to know better.) There was a video of Marines urinating on corpses; the burning, however accidental, of Korans; and the case of Sergeant Bales and the murder spree in Kandahar that left nine children and almost as many adults dead. And those aren’t the only touchstones: these photos recall the ones from Abu Ghraib and the “kill team” case. Afghans might point first to the killing of children in drone strikes. The 82nd reportedly lost thirty-five soldiers in a year in Afghanistan. Multiple deployments have left gruesome wounds and less visible ones. (At Daily Comment today, I’ve written about the problem of sexual assault in the military, exacerbated by time in combat zones.)

The military said, quickly and definitively, that this was wrong: we don’t play with corpses. (“This is not who we are, and it’s certainly not what we represent when it comes to the great majority of men and women in uniform,” said Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.) The L.A. Times wrote that the Pentagon had asked it not to make the photos public—that request was wrong, too, and the paper was right to put it aside. Our only defense when we find our forces doing things like this is outraged openness. The paper did not show all of the pictures. Davan Maharaj, the editor, said,

After careful consideration, we decided that publishing a small but representative selection of the photos would fulfill our obligation to readers to report vigorously and impartially on all aspects of the American mission in Afghanistan, including the allegation that the images reflect a breakdown in unit discipline that was endangering U.S. troops.

According to the Times, that concern about discipline and safety was not a rationalization on its part: it was the reason its source had come forward with the images. But there is also a moral danger to consider. The hard question might be whether the paper has released too few, not too many pictures. The answer to that will depend on whether anything changes now.

“We will collaborate with Afghan authorities and carefully examine the facts and circumstances shown in these photos. As part of this process, we will determine responsibility and accountability of those involved,” said General John Allen, our commander in Afghanistan. One hopes that assignment is not construed narrowly. The story behind these photos must be sorted out. But the “facts and circumstances” encompass the whole wide war.

Photograph: Los Angeles Times

Amy Davidson is a New Yorker staff writer. She is a regular Comment contributor for the magazine and writes a Web column, in which she covers war, sports, and everything in between.